iRobot - Roomba 694

If it's just one room, get one of the old random bounce around Roombas with the bristle roller. 500 or 600 series. They're great at picking up litter and combing embedded pet hair out of carpet. I have a 692 I keep just for that. They're also super cheap because everyone wants the self-emptying models now. I see the older ones pretty often at thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace for under $30.

If it's just one room, get one of the old random bounce around Roombas with the bristle roller. 500 or 600 series. They're great at picking up litter and combing embedded pet hair out of carpet. I have a 692 I keep just for that. They're also super cheap because everyone wants the self-emptying models now. I see the older ones pretty often at thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace for under $30.

Loved my roomba for a year until I realized it was slowly destroying all of my previous rugs at their corners and edges 😭

I bought a used/refurbished Roomba 694 from Amazon for $80 and it has changed my life! I run it every day, and it keeps the floors generally clean and dust free. I’ve had it for about 7 months now, no issues. About 1-2 times per week I use a hand-held vacuum to spot vacuum the stairs and corners that the Roomba can’t reach. I have two fully-indoors cats and two partly-indoors dogs, and I’m amazed at how much pet hair the Roomba vacuums up each time!

My Roomba 690 from 8 years ago is still working fine. Still on the original battery. Just purchased a Roborock QRevo Curv so hoping I get at least 5 years out of that for how much I paid. I think a lot of longevity is based on how often filters are being changed out.

We got this basic model roomba: https://a.co/d/bGF420u It’s on sale now for less than $200 USD. Honestly, life changing. Caveat with our situation: you enter our home through our kitchen, which is all tie. There is a step up into the rest of the living space. I only use the roomba in the kitchen because that’s where the most mess happens for us between shoes, dropping food, and pet food kibble. It’s made a MASSIVE difference for us. I don’t change the dust bin daily, but it still works so well. 

They all have "docks," so I think you mean you don't want a self-emptying machine. To be fair though, the area on the floor taken up by a self-emptying dock is about the same as the space taken up by the robot alone; and the same will be true with just the little charging station. The only direction where you can save space by using only the charging dock instead of the self-emptying dock is vertically. Cleaning ability: Some vacuum models in the Roomba brand line have more suction power than others. It's up to you to research the specs on that. Last spring I bought my first robot, a J5 Combo, which \*can\* mop, but I've never used that feature and never will. I bought it because at that time I couldn't get that level of suction in any machine that was dry-vacuum-only. I tried a Roborock for about a week before I got the Roomba. Great app, great navigation. But when it ran over my in-floor vents for forced air heat, or over the steel ring that supports my swivel rocker, its rollers absolutely fell out. Seriously! And when it finished a job and I went to empty its bin, there was hardly anything in the bin. So I borrowed an old, outdated Roomba - a 690 Series - and ran that immediately afterward. The bin was full of pet hairs. So even an old Roomba far surpassed a new Roborock. It's possible that that particular Roborock machine was faulty, but I wasn't ready to give Roborock another chance after iRobot/Roomba had proven itself. Navigation: Roombas need decent light to do well. Roborocks (and probably other Lidar-driven robots) do not. Depending on when you want to have your robot run, this may be an issue. App: iRobot's app is clunky. It works, eventually ... but it's not fun or efficient. Every time I go into it I feel like I'm in a find-the-secret-door strategy game, plus it's very S-L-O-W. I can go make coffee while the map loads. Roborock on the other hand was slick. In short, in my experience there are trade-offs. So far, Roomba/iRobot seems to have superior cleaning and machine durability, whereas Roborock had superior navigation and app functionality. I value the cleaning ability the most. What you value the most is up to you.

This prob isn’t what you want but I’m very happy with the old roombas. I have a 675 and 690 from goodwill for $20 and they both clean very well. They are very repairable and parts & filters are cheap for them from Amazon. I dunno… 1800… 1200… just so they map the place and empty themselves? Takes me 12 seconds to empty the bin after it cleans. The random navigation works really well. I’ve learned where to keep things and how to arrange the chairs / barstools so they don’t get stuck very often. I have 4 cats and every day they pick up all the fur. For mopping I have an old scooba 5900 which actually mops by sucking up the grime… something about dragging around a microfiber towel while spraying water just doesn’t seem effective to me. My house is a 1300 square foot row home though so maybe you have different needs than me.

This prob isn’t what you want but I’m very happy with the old roombas. I have a 675 and 690 from goodwill for $20 and they both clean very well. They are very repairable and parts & filters are cheap for them from Amazon. I dunno… 1800… 1200… just so they map the place and empty themselves? Takes me 12 seconds to empty the bin after it cleans. The random navigation works really well. I’ve learned where to keep things and how to arrange the chairs / barstools so they don’t get stuck very often. I have 4 cats and every day they pick up all the fur. For mopping I have an old scooba 5900 which actually mops by sucking up the grime… something about dragging around a microfiber towel while spraying water just doesn’t seem effective to me. My house is a 1300 square foot row home though so maybe you have different needs than me.

675 or other 600 series model from a thrift store. $20. Doesn’t empty its self but if you want that you prob need to buy a new one or from someone off marketplace. Honestly emptying the bin yourself after it’s done takes 30 seconds :)

675 or other 600 series model from a thrift store. $20. Doesn’t empty its self but if you want that you prob need to buy a new one or from someone off marketplace. Honestly emptying the bin yourself after it’s done takes 30 seconds :)

I’m not disagreeing with your experience, but I’ve been on my current Roomba for like 5 years with no issues.

I have 2 older roombas and 1 bissel that’s also a mop. Just basic roomba do great with daily upkeep and great with hair- but it’s dependent on layout of your home. Roomba get stuck and can’t go over any door thresholds. You’ll still need to map/vacuum weekly tho [link to the old roombas in your budget](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08SP5GYJP?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title)

I have a roomba and love it. I’m always surprised when I empty the bin. It picks up so much dust!

I have a Roomba 564 Pet I bought when my son was 6 months old. He's now 14 and the Roomba would be still doing the job if this little bastard had not screwed the elly plaque's screwheads. I bought a new battery I cannot replace because of that (I'll Dremel them out after the Spring clean out). So it was working since 2011, August. The other Roomba, a 600 something bought on discount in a clearance sale when my son was 6 or 7, is still going strong. I wonder how the Dreame L50 Pro Ultra is going to perform. It is my Mother's Day present, but we're not done with the Spring-clean so it just worked in the living-room.

Mapping 9 | Roomba J7+ 5 Does very good but I dont like how it splits one of my rooms ( Obstacle Avoidance 7 | Roomba J7+ 8 Does good, gentle around furniture. Has issues with a couple dog toys that it like to try and suck up. App 7 | Roomba App 8 Lots of options. Can tweak almost everything. Frustrating trying to change room layouts Vacuum Carpet 7 | Roomba 6 Does a good job on short carpet. I have a German shepherd and it does a good job of getting hair of carpet. Also does a decent job of getting dirt off surface of carpet. Deep clean you will want a regular vacuum. Vacuum Hardwood 5 | Roomba J7+ 7 As time has gone on the x10 that cleans my upstairs which is 90% LPF seems to have lost some of its cleaning power. I haven't noticed this on my basement x10 which is cleaning 90% carpet. My x10's seem to have issues picking up anything the size of dog food. Never had any issue with roomba when it come to vacuuming up dog food or anything that size. Mopping 8 | Roomba J7+ 0 Seems to have gotten better at mopping since I got it. easily cleans light messes and dirt off the floor. Base station 9 | Roomba Base 7 Does what its designed to do and seems to hold a lot more dirt then roomba. Has yet to fail to empty the vacuum where as my roomba would sometimes fail to empty due to small debris clogging the base station. Quality 5 | Roomba J7+ 7 I have 2 of x10's. I've had to send one in for repair already due to a roller brush bushing breaking. Anything the size of a piece of dog food will jam the roller and potentially break the dumb bushing design that holds the brush. I've also had sensor failure errors that come and go. Never had issues with roomba and the build quality just seems better on my J7+ I expect both x10's needing to be replaced in 5 years. Overall I would say dont pay full price. If you can get it for 600 or less its prob a good machine but the overall quality holds it back.

Look for an irobot roomba 600 series. Random navigation, effective cleaning performance, durable and easy to repair, cheap spare brushes/filters/batteries. I mostly use a newer roborock, but when it dies, I've got a roomba 600 on standby in the closet.

MOST DURABLE? Alright then, new robot vacuums wont really do that. I know i will get downvoted for this but if you dont need self emptying, mopping etc, just pick up a second hand Roomba 500 series, they are known for being extremely reliable. Some 600 series like 675 or 690 are 500 series with wifi and some minor improvements, they are pretty common, cheap and easy to repair. Want mapping? Roomba 980 or any 900 series roomba (do note that roomba 900 series doesnt have keep out zones). 900 series are known for being reliable and just good robots over all. Why did i recommend these? Because newer robor vacuums these days have too many moving parts, and they work best at homes. While the roombas i listed above were also made for homes, old irobot was different than current day irobot, more reliable and roombas are pretty modular, you can take then apart and drop in a replacement part easily. They can work decently in commercial environments, especially 500/600 series. This subreddit is mostly "against" irobot, so i'll say this, i am not paid by irobot, i am a 14 year old on the internet who is passionate about this stuff :)) Edit: Check out Makita's industrial robot vacuums as well. Way more suited to commercial use.

The basic 600 series Roombas don't have much to go wrong, and there are OEM and generic parts available all over the Internet. I'm not sure about high-end models, but the basic ones have been made for years and have excellent support

If you are into servers and self-hosting, Valetudo is an option. It's a self-hosted replacement for some robot vacuums' cloud services I also don't think the Roomba 600 series need cloud features. They use random navigation

You're going to want a basic Roborock S5 or a Roomba 500 or 600 series. Clean up the room as best you can and set the robot in the room and press clean and shut the door. The Roombas have virtual walls which you can use to fence off areas of the room. The Roombas IMHO are the preferred robots as they clean better, and are easier to maintain. If you buy a used Roborock, you'll need to be prepared to do a [teardown](https://www.instructables.com/Roborock-S5-Disassembly-for-Cleaning-Troubleshooti/) [cleaning](https://www.instructables.com/A-Roborock-S5Max-Rescue/), and that will be over whelming for most people, It doesn't require anything fancy for tools so most people can do it if they can get over the complexity. This is how we run things here. We are old people trying to raise 3 active (10, 8, and 7 YO) kids. The robots do help,

Go out on Ebay or your local thrift store and pick up old 500 or 600 series Roombas for parts. They usually just need a new battery. Be sure the charger comes with them. The older Roombas are superb cleaners and very durable. This is what we mostly use at our house along with several iRobot Scoobas for the mopping.

Pull it out once a month and put it through its paces and keep the battery charged. Pull the charged battery and store it separate from the robot. This way, your robot will be ready to go to work when you need it.